In the art of making roofing shingles and tiles for exterior application in the building industry, such products are made by compression molding of multi-component formulations, which comprise blends of virgin and recycled polymers and various low cost fillers.
In order to achieve low production costs, it is commonplace for manufacturers to use inexpensive raw materials, such as recycled resin of low quality with a very large amount of inexpensive filler derived from various waste streams. Such filler can include carbon black, recycled rubber tire crumb, coal fines, pulp and paper waste, and other inexpensive materials.
The use of large quantities of such fillers reduces the mechanical properties of the ultimate product, however. Additionally, the use of such large quantities of fillers limits the color variations that are possible in the products and makes the processing of the formulations into shingles and other exterior application building products very difficult.
Typically, roofing shingles and tiles made of such material having waste for filler do not provide good weather resistance for the products. Additionally, the warranty periods that can reasonable be provided for such products tend to be short in duration.
Furthermore, such building industry roofing products have relatively low impact strength, especially at low temperatures. Insofar as their available colors are concerned, such tend to be limited to the colors gray and black.